You're right, Mattel does need China more than China needs Mattel. Excellent detective work.
In a very, VERY short-term sense, the US is beholden to cheap goods from China, but the very nature of the things we get from China means that retooling elsewhere isn't exactly difficult -- whereas China would have one hell of a time finding another America to provide all those juicy, juicy manufacturing contracts. I'm not saying it would be pleasant for either side, but in the long run the US would come out well ahead.
After all, look at what happens when former allies go to war. Indeed, with China having formally declared the US an "enemy state" back around 92 (in their annual Defense Posture report), it seems likely that the US government has given this potential eventuality plenty of consideration. It also seems likely that the larger (and therefore more financially relevant) corporations who are dependent on China have probably considered this from time to time.
I'm a little confused by your post. You say until recently there wasn't any incentive to go back, but evidence of water (or being able to make water) is enough to bring us back. I was prepared to argue with this, as I can't see that being much incentive, and then you confused me by pointing out several good reasons that the moon is a crappy place to build a base.
I don't see the point of a moon base at all. Launching Mars missions from orbit makes far more sense than any moon base does. (Robert Zubrin has explained all of this in excruciating detail.)
I can't say I believe US interest in a Mars mission is retaliation against China's plans, but I also don't expect it'll happen if we're hell-bent on this moon base idea as part of the overall process of getting there.
Finally, I expect we're going to see a horrible disaster out of one of these countries trying to get to the moon. It's damnably difficult and dangerous, and from what I've read the successes the US enjoyed involved a whole bunch of luck.
I've recently finished work on a robotics project where of the four people in our group, one had to be the leader because she was the only US citizen. All she did for the project was deal with some logistics and prepare the powerpoint slides.
Thinking this one through, you've told us essentially nothing. What is the relevance of being dubbed "leader" of the group? Why does it bother you? If all she did was logistics and slides, are you suggesting you'd rather deal with trivial administrative bullshit, or would you rather be doing robotics?
No matter what I angle I take, I just don't see any problems. Your thingamajig got funded and built, you didn't have to mess with paperwork, and you benefited from American funding without even being a citizen. Sounds like you came out nearly as well as if you could have done this back home, wherever that may be.
Heck, bigger always wins even if the picture is worse.
We have a 1080p LCD projector in my living room shooting a 150" picture (it's a fairly large room). For daytime use, I put a 47" DLP rear-projection TV on the floor, mainly because the top of the DLP cabinet just clears the bottom of the projection screen. This TV also does 1080p and they're both fed the exact same signal from the AV closet.
Often we'll be watching something on the DLP around the time the sun goes down enough to switch to the projector, so we'll turn on the projector and for a few minutes both of them are on while the projector warms up. I started noticing that even before the projector was up to temp and the picture was clear and bright, I automatically ignored the smaller DLP screen, even though it was many times brighter and easier to see. I started asking other people and everyone does this.
Size also helps with higher-res high-quality graphics. Gears of War, for example, has some really excellent imagery, and everyone who has played it on both displays at my house agrees it's just more enjoyable on the big screen. It's exactly the same image, but it somehow feels like there is so much more detail on the huge projector output.
That doesn't work so well either. My father made the mistake of dating a chick who turned out to have a connection to a very large, very dangerous biker gang. And they had deep connections to the local sheriff's department. When the shit hit the fan, he called the media. They showed up, decided it wasn't exciting enough, and left. We nearly got killed.
If you're not selling ad impressions, they don't give a flying fuck about what's happening.
His usage isn't typical, but it's indicative of where people are going with it. My wife remotes into one or two machines from the office all day, I remote into several work servers all day, I stream music all day, often she's streaming music too, and sometimes if we have a house guest they can be online in the guest bedroom streaming music or whatever. Plus the Xbox is going, and on top of that I'm online doing various things all day long. It adds up quickly.
Granted I'm a non-typical user, too, but unlike the other post, which refers to BT seeding linux distros and other things that may never go mainstream, even just a couple people in a house doing a lot of audio and video streaming can easily nail that limit on a regular basis.
I've only dabbled in Linux (with generally unsatisfying results), but SuSE was recommended to me on many occasions as being easy to install, etc etc... and I've been taking shots at using Linux for a long, long time. The first one I installed was Yggdrasil. I'm betting most slashdotters probably haven't even heard of it. (And yeah, I probably misspelled it.)
Man, how times change. Remember when distros like Mandrake and SuSE were the miracle cure? I wonder how long Ubuntu will be the Super Amazing Solution to Everyone's Computing Needs? LOL
Probably not many, unless the hot girl also owns a wireless IP webcam that points somewhere interesting. In which case you can probably already find her somewhere online, in which case those people will be more interested in articles about stealing credit card numbers.
Very close guess, the current figure is about 11%. Physical cash was $749.6 billion in December, 2006, the last time the Fed released updated the figure known as M0, and M3 (which they no longer report as of March '06) was $7.06 trillion, which is more or less all of the dollars (including the non-physical supply) in circulation in the world.
The way the article is written, it sounds more like the real "issue" can be described as, "I peeked at Bob in Accounting's machine, didn't like what I found, and I wish somebody would cover my ass so I can stick it to Bob." It has less to do with ethics and morality than with a bunch of sysadmins struggling to justify snooping. There are a whole bunch of reasons not to leave the keys to the kingdom in the hands of your typical low-dollar server-nurses, and this is one of them.
I'm wrong about what? I have a pile of unlocked phones that were purchased under contract, and that were unlocked by calling the regular old service number and telling them I wanted to unlock my phone, and I wasn't ever charged anything extra. So what am I wrong about?
You don't say where "here" is but I'm guessing you're talking about the US. I unlock all of my phones and have never had to pay a termination fee. Just tell them you're going overseas, and voila, no further questions asked. In fact, for my last Treo, Cingular actually e-mailed the unlock code and step-by-step instructions to me.
NERVA does not produce "radioactive clouds". The reactor heats the reaction mass, but there is no direct contact between the two. It might produce ONE, if the reactor exploded, but we've gotten pretty good at safely launching small reactors, even though I suspect most people don't realize it (many satellites are powered by simple reactors, RTGs). It's also worth noting that due to the limited temperatures that are possible (you don't want to melt the ship, and you're limited in terms of the weight you can launch) the reactor wouldn't be started until the vehicle was in space anyway. NERVA is not a viable ground-launch technology.
Confusingly, "Orion" is the name of the new "Crew Exploration Vehicle" that NASA is designing, but I assume you're talking about nuclear-bomb-powered spacecraft, Project Orion. I agree that it's a somewhat shortsighted approach as launch vehicles go (unless you buy into Freeman Dyson's assertions that single missions could carry such huge paylods [the largest detailed Orion proposal was for an 8 million ton ship] that far, far fewer launches would be necessary in the first place), but it would make an excellent candidate for in-space propulsion.
Actually, that's only true of about 30% of humanity. And I bet ten bucks that if Linux or OSX held 30% market share, we'd be hearing all sorts of amazing new truths asserted on/. from those strongholds of zealotry.:)
I was under the impression that a blog is where one dipshit babbles endlessly, and sometimes others respond to it. On the other hand, slashdot is a forum -- anybody can submit a post to begin a discussion (despite the fact that there are restrictions and reviews, however incompetently performed), and the discussion following the original post (the article) is the point of the site. There isn't much ambiguity about what a forum is, and they predate blogs by several decades.
Certainly the numbnuts who live and breathe blogs seem to have decided that any form of online discussion is a blog, but that just further confirms that on the whole, they tend towards cluelessness.
Yes, there are usages and situations that blur the lines, but that's like arguing that there isn't any point in differentiating between a truck and a car because they have so much in common.
(As an aside, we need a new moderation option: +1 Car Analogy)
You don't appear to actually be replying to me specifically, but since you did, I'll point out that (a) all I did was clarify how to "just do your job" better, (b) you don't get extra super-best-friend brownie-points for "just doing your job" when your job involves supporting a bunch of assholes, and (c) just because he's doing his job doesn't mean you have to go easy on him. In fact, his job is to field and/or deflect questions exactly like this, in between the propagandizing (irrespective of the merit of the message, or lack thereof).
Additionally, I suppose my post was an agreement with the parent poster's supposition that the only way he could address these questions would be to simply avoid them, because there really aren't any answers they could give that anybody wants to hear.
I didn't say shoot him in the face, after all. I'm sure certain dorks will say just that, but you didn't choose to respond to them.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, Mattel does need China more than China needs Mattel. Excellent detective work.
In a very, VERY short-term sense, the US is beholden to cheap goods from China, but the very nature of the things we get from China means that retooling elsewhere isn't exactly difficult -- whereas China would have one hell of a time finding another America to provide all those juicy, juicy manufacturing contracts. I'm not saying it would be pleasant for either side, but in the long run the US would come out well ahead.
After all, look at what happens when former allies go to war. Indeed, with China having formally declared the US an "enemy state" back around 92 (in their annual Defense Posture report), it seems likely that the US government has given this potential eventuality plenty of consideration. It also seems likely that the larger (and therefore more financially relevant) corporations who are dependent on China have probably considered this from time to time.
I'm a little confused by your post. You say until recently there wasn't any incentive to go back, but evidence of water (or being able to make water) is enough to bring us back. I was prepared to argue with this, as I can't see that being much incentive, and then you confused me by pointing out several good reasons that the moon is a crappy place to build a base.
I don't see the point of a moon base at all. Launching Mars missions from orbit makes far more sense than any moon base does. (Robert Zubrin has explained all of this in excruciating detail.)
I can't say I believe US interest in a Mars mission is retaliation against China's plans, but I also don't expect it'll happen if we're hell-bent on this moon base idea as part of the overall process of getting there.
Finally, I expect we're going to see a horrible disaster out of one of these countries trying to get to the moon. It's damnably difficult and dangerous, and from what I've read the successes the US enjoyed involved a whole bunch of luck.
I've recently finished work on a robotics project where of the four people in our group, one had to be the leader because she was the only US citizen. All she did for the project was deal with some logistics and prepare the powerpoint slides.
Thinking this one through, you've told us essentially nothing. What is the relevance of being dubbed "leader" of the group? Why does it bother you? If all she did was logistics and slides, are you suggesting you'd rather deal with trivial administrative bullshit, or would you rather be doing robotics?
No matter what I angle I take, I just don't see any problems. Your thingamajig got funded and built, you didn't have to mess with paperwork, and you benefited from American funding without even being a citizen. Sounds like you came out nearly as well as if you could have done this back home, wherever that may be.
Heck, bigger always wins even if the picture is worse.
We have a 1080p LCD projector in my living room shooting a 150" picture (it's a fairly large room). For daytime use, I put a 47" DLP rear-projection TV on the floor, mainly because the top of the DLP cabinet just clears the bottom of the projection screen. This TV also does 1080p and they're both fed the exact same signal from the AV closet.
Often we'll be watching something on the DLP around the time the sun goes down enough to switch to the projector, so we'll turn on the projector and for a few minutes both of them are on while the projector warms up. I started noticing that even before the projector was up to temp and the picture was clear and bright, I automatically ignored the smaller DLP screen, even though it was many times brighter and easier to see. I started asking other people and everyone does this.
Size also helps with higher-res high-quality graphics. Gears of War, for example, has some really excellent imagery, and everyone who has played it on both displays at my house agrees it's just more enjoyable on the big screen. It's exactly the same image, but it somehow feels like there is so much more detail on the huge projector output.
That doesn't work so well either. My father made the mistake of dating a chick who turned out to have a connection to a very large, very dangerous biker gang. And they had deep connections to the local sheriff's department. When the shit hit the fan, he called the media. They showed up, decided it wasn't exciting enough, and left. We nearly got killed.
If you're not selling ad impressions, they don't give a flying fuck about what's happening.
His usage isn't typical, but it's indicative of where people are going with it. My wife remotes into one or two machines from the office all day, I remote into several work servers all day, I stream music all day, often she's streaming music too, and sometimes if we have a house guest they can be online in the guest bedroom streaming music or whatever. Plus the Xbox is going, and on top of that I'm online doing various things all day long. It adds up quickly.
Granted I'm a non-typical user, too, but unlike the other post, which refers to BT seeding linux distros and other things that may never go mainstream, even just a couple people in a house doing a lot of audio and video streaming can easily nail that limit on a regular basis.
I've only dabbled in Linux (with generally unsatisfying results), but SuSE was recommended to me on many occasions as being easy to install, etc etc... and I've been taking shots at using Linux for a long, long time. The first one I installed was Yggdrasil. I'm betting most slashdotters probably haven't even heard of it. (And yeah, I probably misspelled it.)
Man, how times change. Remember when distros like Mandrake and SuSE were the miracle cure?
I wonder how long Ubuntu will be the Super Amazing Solution to Everyone's Computing Needs? LOL
Probably not many, unless the hot girl also owns a wireless IP webcam that points somewhere interesting. In which case you can probably already find her somewhere online, in which case those people will be more interested in articles about stealing credit card numbers.
Very close guess, the current figure is about 11%. Physical cash was $749.6 billion in December, 2006, the last time the Fed released updated the figure known as M0, and M3 (which they no longer report as of March '06) was $7.06 trillion, which is more or less all of the dollars (including the non-physical supply) in circulation in the world.
The irony, of course, is that his own post misses two opportunities to insert those critically important extra spaces...
I'm sure vendors are eagerly refreshing slashdot so they can count how many gamers made the puzzling decision to buy a Mac.
The way the article is written, it sounds more like the real "issue" can be described as, "I peeked at Bob in Accounting's machine, didn't like what I found, and I wish somebody would cover my ass so I can stick it to Bob." It has less to do with ethics and morality than with a bunch of sysadmins struggling to justify snooping. There are a whole bunch of reasons not to leave the keys to the kingdom in the hands of your typical low-dollar server-nurses, and this is one of them.
Offtopic? You got screwed.
Since the story amounts to "LOOK! PICTURES!" you're about as on-topic as you could possibly get.
And yes, the Millennium Falcon was my first thought.
It looks so much like it, in fact, that you just might deserve a -1 Redundant...
I'm wrong about what? I have a pile of unlocked phones that were purchased under contract, and that were unlocked by calling the regular old service number and telling them I wanted to unlock my phone, and I wasn't ever charged anything extra. So what am I wrong about?
You don't say where "here" is but I'm guessing you're talking about the US. I unlock all of my phones and have never had to pay a termination fee. Just tell them you're going overseas, and voila, no further questions asked. In fact, for my last Treo, Cingular actually e-mailed the unlock code and step-by-step instructions to me.
One would tend to think that Linux aficionado would take the moral high road and promote cooperation.
LOL, yeah. That was my first assumption. Hell, you're not even new here...
NERVA does not produce "radioactive clouds". The reactor heats the reaction mass, but there is no direct contact between the two. It might produce ONE, if the reactor exploded, but we've gotten pretty good at safely launching small reactors, even though I suspect most people don't realize it (many satellites are powered by simple reactors, RTGs). It's also worth noting that due to the limited temperatures that are possible (you don't want to melt the ship, and you're limited in terms of the weight you can launch) the reactor wouldn't be started until the vehicle was in space anyway. NERVA is not a viable ground-launch technology.
Confusingly, "Orion" is the name of the new "Crew Exploration Vehicle" that NASA is designing, but I assume you're talking about nuclear-bomb-powered spacecraft, Project Orion. I agree that it's a somewhat shortsighted approach as launch vehicles go (unless you buy into Freeman Dyson's assertions that single missions could carry such huge paylods [the largest detailed Orion proposal was for an 8 million ton ship] that far, far fewer launches would be necessary in the first place), but it would make an excellent candidate for in-space propulsion.
"Er, Hi, This is Ranesh from Advanced Emulation Solutions..."
Or more likely:
"Hello sir, my name is Tom, calling from your Houston of your Texas. With the client we are noticing a problem. Please to do the needful."
Actually, that's only true of about 30% of humanity. And I bet ten bucks that if Linux or OSX held 30% market share, we'd be hearing all sorts of amazing new truths asserted on /. from those strongholds of zealotry. :)
[golf clap] Varry niiice.
Only true if your user ID contains 7 digits...
I was under the impression that a blog is where one dipshit babbles endlessly, and sometimes others respond to it. On the other hand, slashdot is a forum -- anybody can submit a post to begin a discussion (despite the fact that there are restrictions and reviews, however incompetently performed), and the discussion following the original post (the article) is the point of the site. There isn't much ambiguity about what a forum is, and they predate blogs by several decades.
Certainly the numbnuts who live and breathe blogs seem to have decided that any form of online discussion is a blog, but that just further confirms that on the whole, they tend towards cluelessness.
Yes, there are usages and situations that blur the lines, but that's like arguing that there isn't any point in differentiating between a truck and a car because they have so much in common.
(As an aside, we need a new moderation option: +1 Car Analogy)
and an inordinate amount of traffic searching for hot women that somehow hit this page.
Not so surprising; it has the words "squeeze" and "tube" in the very first paragraph!
You don't appear to actually be replying to me specifically, but since you did, I'll point out that (a) all I did was clarify how to "just do your job" better, (b) you don't get extra super-best-friend brownie-points for "just doing your job" when your job involves supporting a bunch of assholes, and (c) just because he's doing his job doesn't mean you have to go easy on him. In fact, his job is to field and/or deflect questions exactly like this, in between the propagandizing (irrespective of the merit of the message, or lack thereof).
Additionally, I suppose my post was an agreement with the parent poster's supposition that the only way he could address these questions would be to simply avoid them, because there really aren't any answers they could give that anybody wants to hear.
I didn't say shoot him in the face, after all. I'm sure certain dorks will say just that, but you didn't choose to respond to them.